I had two issues that I was struggling to solve in my classroom. One was that students I wanted to maximize classroom time with bell to bell learning and the second was that my students were starved for art history knowledge.

The first issue, bell to bell learning is challenging in the art classroom because clean up time of materials is a necessary thing. It always felt great when students successfully cleaned up their supplies and were ready to go to their next class. We got good at the clean up part but then I had students waiting by the door on their phones.

I realized that I could capitalize on this screen time by assigning weekly art history challenges. So each week I created this list: Art History Challenges and had the students create a page of images and facts on an artist.

I started this at the beginning of the year and although a few weeks slipped by the students now have a rich collection of knowledge and art history pages that they created and more importantly the bell to bell learning time is utilized and their knowledge of art history has expanded.

My architecture students had the pleasure of visiting three wonderful spaces and meeting with talented architects and designers last week.​Here is a summary of our great day!

Fabrizio CorporationWe are fortunate here at BHS to have Ariana Fabrizio,daughter of Anthony Fabrizio and owner of FabrizioCorporation. This successful business is known for the highquality millwork that they create for commercial andresidential clients. The students toured their wonderful shop and got to see​a CNC machine in action!

Here is what Brendan had to say: "I did not know The CNC machine at Fabrizio Corp could make such complicated designs and make a copy of something that was made by hand 100 years ago."

CBT ArchitectsMy proud teacher moment came at CBT Architects when my two former studentsDan Ricardelli and Meagan Kelley welcomed us to their office. Dan is a registered architect and Meagan is an interior designer with the firm, Robin Adams ( CBT Interior Designer) the students toured CBT's great building. They learned about the day to day work of designers at that firm, saw their library and even got to see the model building workshop in action!​"I liked touring the CBT firm, as it was interesting to see what the actual work space and building of a firm looks like, and hearing what its like to work there from someone on a similar path to me. " Ryan, Grade 10

​Designer Ben Uyeda of HomeMade-Modern has generous donated his time to BHS students once again, He met us at Autodesk and shared the information about the Autodesk space and toured the students through. He discussed his projects and how he as used the tools to enhance his designs and experiment.